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Unlikeable Female Characters: Flawed Female Characters and the Power They Hold
"A fresh feminist appraisal of the pop culture canon." —Publishers Weekly
How bitches, trainwrecks, shrews, and crazy women have taken over pop culture and liberated women from having to be nice.
Female characters throughout history have been burdened by the moral trap that is likeability. Any woman who dares to reveal her messy side has been treated as a cautionary tale. Today, unlikeable female characters are everywhere in film, TV, and wider pop culture. For the first time ever, they are being accepted by audiences and even showered with industry awards. We are finally accepting that women are—gasp—fully fledged human beings. How did we get to this point?
Unlikeable Female Characters traces the evolution of highly memorable female characters, examining what exactly makes them popular, how audiences have reacted to them, and the ways in which pop culture is finally allowing us to celebrate the complexities of being a woman. Anna Bogutskaya, film programmer, broadcaster, and co-founder of the horror film collective and podcast The Final Girls, takes us on a journey through popular film, TV, and music, looking at the nuances of womanhood on and off-screen to reveal whether pop culture—and society—is finally ready to embrace complicated women.
Praise for Unlikeable Female Characters:
"Fascinating, insightful, and kick-ass." —Emma Jane Unsworth, internationally bestselling author of Grown Ups and Animals
"Beautifully written." —Chelsea G. Summers, author of A Certain Hunger
"Part-cultural exposé, part-Taylor Swift album." —Clarisse Loughrey, Chief Film Critic at The Independent
"Brilliant masterpiece breaking down the tired tropes of TV and beyond." —Aparna Shewakramani, author of She's Unlikeable and star of Indian Matchmaking
How bitches, trainwrecks, shrews, and crazy women have taken over pop culture and liberated women from having to be nice.
Female characters throughout history have been burdened by the moral trap that is likeability. Any woman who dares to reveal her messy side has been treated as a cautionary tale. Today, unlikeable female characters are everywhere in film, TV, and wider pop culture. For the first time ever, they are being accepted by audiences and even showered with industry awards. We are finally accepting that women are—gasp—fully fledged human beings. How did we get to this point?
Unlikeable Female Characters traces the evolution of highly memorable female characters, examining what exactly makes them popular, how audiences have reacted to them, and the ways in which pop culture is finally allowing us to celebrate the complexities of being a woman. Anna Bogutskaya, film programmer, broadcaster, and co-founder of the horror film collective and podcast The Final Girls, takes us on a journey through popular film, TV, and music, looking at the nuances of womanhood on and off-screen to reveal whether pop culture—and society—is finally ready to embrace complicated women.
Praise for Unlikeable Female Characters:
"Fascinating, insightful, and kick-ass." —Emma Jane Unsworth, internationally bestselling author of Grown Ups and Animals
"Beautifully written." —Chelsea G. Summers, author of A Certain Hunger
"Part-cultural exposé, part-Taylor Swift album." —Clarisse Loughrey, Chief Film Critic at The Independent
"Brilliant masterpiece breaking down the tired tropes of TV and beyond." —Aparna Shewakramani, author of She's Unlikeable and star of Indian Matchmaking
347 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 9, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 734 reviews
February 20, 2023
In the beginning, this book touches on very interesting and relevant topics about the portrayal of female characters on the screen, big and small, particularly those characters that are "unlikable" women.
What exactly is an "unlikable" female character? I think that will vary greatly depending on the individual, because what's likable or unlikable for one watcher (or reader, for that matter) isn't going to be strictly the same. I, for one, don't like the "likable" female characters that YA books push on the public and one of my all-time favourite characters is an "unlikable" female character. [1] For the sake of brevity, Anna Bogutskaya defines an "unlikeable female character" as a fictional woman who doesn't "look, behave, or talk like the blueprint of a 'good woman'." Those women are the Bitch, the Mean Girl, the Angry Woman, the Slut, the Trainwreck, the Crazy Woman, the Psycho, the Shrew, and the Weirdo.
What do they have in common is, that none conform to the societal expectations of what a woman should be personality-wise. They're not moral, upstanding, nice, polite, pliant, and sweet. They are downright despicable, or at best "morally compromised" as the author calls them. They are the grey and nuanced characters that, when they're men, are acclaimed by the public as realistic and true to life. But when they're women . . . they are insulted and hated. A male character that sleeps around is seductive, a female character that does the same is a Slut. A male character striving to reach the summit of financial and political power is driven and smart, a female character doing the same is a Bitch, a male character that express his anger is angry at the injustices of the system/the world, a female character that does the same is an Angry Woman that's merely angry at someone specific; and so on and so forth.
In this aspect, I 100% agree with Bogutskaya. There's definitely a blatant double standard to judge unlikable male and unlikable female characters; anyone that is even passingly familiar with a fandom knows that. Why is Skyler White the most hated and not Walter? Why is Cersei Lannister the one publicly and sexually humiliated and not Tywin? I myself have pointed out this discrepancy of standards with the Marquise de Merteuil, that Bogutskaya also mentions. The Bad Boys are redeemed or allowed to get away with it, and who doesn't love redeemed Bad Boys? There's a whole subgenre of romance whose entire premise is basically a bad boy reformed by a good girl. But the Bad Girls must always be punished, letting them get away with murder is rare and redemptions are rarer still.
Bogutskaya argues that this need to punish female characters for the sin of unlikability is due to sexism and misogyny, and I agree there as well. She argues that "likability" has historically been a way to keep women constrained, to dictate acceptable behaviour to women, to control them, since the earliest days of Hollywood when the censors reigned supreme and could sink a film or musical with a head shake. That much is true, too. She argues we've inherited that from the old censors, now flavoured with the argument that "likability" means a film/show's success and "unlikability" means it'll tank in the box office, which Bogutskaya says is wholly untrue because there's a huge market for unlikable female characters in cinema and TV . . . if only they were allowed to flourish!
So far, so good. Bogutskaya and I have agreed on three points already, in my view the most important and that contain this book's purpose in a nutshell.
But then, it's when we arrive to the middle of the book and continue till the end that this book loses its interest and, through that, goes from a valid denunciation of sexist practices in cinema and TV to a pamphlet that basically calls for the abolition of "likability" in its entirety but put in a way that reads more like arguing to spare women the consequences of their bad behaviour. After the chapters on the Bitch and the Mean Girl, which to me are the strongest, the argument becomes repetitive and exhaustingly ranty. It's basically "Bitches aren't allowed to be bitches, they're punished; Mean Girls aren't allowed to be mean, they're punished; Sluts aren't allowed to be slutty, they're punished; Angry women aren't allowed to express their anger, they're punished, Psychos aren't..." ad infinitum. Always peppered by comments that male characters that are all those things are celebrated, even when the examples are cherry-picked and made to fit in with a hammer. So your example of male anger being "celebrated" is The Joker, really? Really?
That's the biggest problem, to me, the cherry-picking of examples and omissions of context. Bogutskaya very deliberately goes for the worst/extreme examples to "prove" her points, which many times are a stretch. She goes for Reddit threads to support her claims, a place that is infamously young, white, male, and liberal, so how exactly does she expect them to react given that skewed demographic? That'd be like going to ask the Amish for their opinion on Playboy. And speaking of that, she also goes to the other extreme to "prove" her point, by citing without naming them, the conservative reactions to Cardi B's WAP song. Bogutskaya might steer clear of naming the pearl-clutchers, but we all know it's the likes of conservative Orthodox Jew pundit Ben Shapiro, who is predictably going to react like a conservative Orthodox Jew. What was I saying about asking the Amish, hmmm?
And some of the critics and media she quotes aren't known for their quality analysis content or their outstanding journalism either. I mean, the Huffington Post, really? Really? And as the cincher, Bogutskaya, a white woman, doesn't know where to stand on the whole Latinos vs Latinx debacle, because at first she uses the gendered Latina and then suddenly remembers she's meant to be "inclusive" and, good little white woman that she is, uses Latinx next, screw what actual Latin American people think of the term.
So, essentially, this is another case of a relevant and important topic suffering from the writer's delivery, plus too much pop psychology and pop feminism. Nothing Bogutskaya says here is really groundbreaking or particularly new, I've read the same things from better informed and more thoughtful feminists, including the controversial Camille Paglia. And the book suffers so much from the omissions and oversimplifications, to the point I was sometimes asking myself how much Bogutskaya really knows the fandoms she's criticising. For example, on the chapter where she addresses Cersei Lannister (in the Bitch section), she seems to imply that the reason Cersei is hated is because she's an ambitious woman who goes for it and doesn't apologise for it, and quotes actress Lena Headey as support, breathlessly adding that Lena got hate for her performance from fans. Here, I have to ask, did she know Cersei was so hated because the showrunners were doing their damnedest to make her "likable" and "nuanced" at the expense of other characters? TV Cersei isn't Book Cersei, that was the root of the fan hate. TV Cersei is a prime example of botched "likability," but Bogutskaya thinks it's her being the villain and punished for it that is the problem. Frankly, Catelyn and Sansa Stark are better examples for her thesis, both are "likable" in the traditional sense but hated by the fandom because they go against the popular characters (male and female). And, curiously, Bogutskaya, who argues for abolishing "likability," has no thoughts on the fact that Cersei's brother Tyrion, who in the books is morally compromised, is made to be nice and near-saintly in the show . . . and he is a fan favourite.
In sum, I do think there's merit in campaigning for allowing female characters to be as bad and flawed and messy as male characters. We women are no saints, and many of us love Bad Girls too as we love Good Boys. Not everyone likes Bad Boys, and not every Bad Boy is allowed to "get away with it" (we circle back to the cherry-picking issue) either, and the concepts of likability and unlikability are highly subjective in any case, so the conclusion to get rid of likability as a passé concept and view unlikability as merely a trait doesn't appeal to me. It smacks of the trope that bad behaviour means "nuance" whilst good behaviour is "unrealistic idealism," and glosses over the reasons for why the "bad/grey characters" became so popular in the first place. I'd much rather advocate for well-rounded characters, which to me mean both good and bad, flawed and layered, instead of working with black-and-white concepts of characterisation.
___________________________________
[1] The Marquise de Merteuil, from whom I got my Goodreads username, so you can all stop asking me if I'm French now, especially those men seeking a relationship that send DMs to me.
I received an ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review
What exactly is an "unlikable" female character? I think that will vary greatly depending on the individual, because what's likable or unlikable for one watcher (or reader, for that matter) isn't going to be strictly the same. I, for one, don't like the "likable" female characters that YA books push on the public and one of my all-time favourite characters is an "unlikable" female character. [1] For the sake of brevity, Anna Bogutskaya defines an "unlikeable female character" as a fictional woman who doesn't "look, behave, or talk like the blueprint of a 'good woman'." Those women are the Bitch, the Mean Girl, the Angry Woman, the Slut, the Trainwreck, the Crazy Woman, the Psycho, the Shrew, and the Weirdo.
What do they have in common is, that none conform to the societal expectations of what a woman should be personality-wise. They're not moral, upstanding, nice, polite, pliant, and sweet. They are downright despicable, or at best "morally compromised" as the author calls them. They are the grey and nuanced characters that, when they're men, are acclaimed by the public as realistic and true to life. But when they're women . . . they are insulted and hated. A male character that sleeps around is seductive, a female character that does the same is a Slut. A male character striving to reach the summit of financial and political power is driven and smart, a female character doing the same is a Bitch, a male character that express his anger is angry at the injustices of the system/the world, a female character that does the same is an Angry Woman that's merely angry at someone specific; and so on and so forth.
In this aspect, I 100% agree with Bogutskaya. There's definitely a blatant double standard to judge unlikable male and unlikable female characters; anyone that is even passingly familiar with a fandom knows that. Why is Skyler White the most hated and not Walter? Why is Cersei Lannister the one publicly and sexually humiliated and not Tywin? I myself have pointed out this discrepancy of standards with the Marquise de Merteuil, that Bogutskaya also mentions. The Bad Boys are redeemed or allowed to get away with it, and who doesn't love redeemed Bad Boys? There's a whole subgenre of romance whose entire premise is basically a bad boy reformed by a good girl. But the Bad Girls must always be punished, letting them get away with murder is rare and redemptions are rarer still.
Bogutskaya argues that this need to punish female characters for the sin of unlikability is due to sexism and misogyny, and I agree there as well. She argues that "likability" has historically been a way to keep women constrained, to dictate acceptable behaviour to women, to control them, since the earliest days of Hollywood when the censors reigned supreme and could sink a film or musical with a head shake. That much is true, too. She argues we've inherited that from the old censors, now flavoured with the argument that "likability" means a film/show's success and "unlikability" means it'll tank in the box office, which Bogutskaya says is wholly untrue because there's a huge market for unlikable female characters in cinema and TV . . . if only they were allowed to flourish!
So far, so good. Bogutskaya and I have agreed on three points already, in my view the most important and that contain this book's purpose in a nutshell.
But then, it's when we arrive to the middle of the book and continue till the end that this book loses its interest and, through that, goes from a valid denunciation of sexist practices in cinema and TV to a pamphlet that basically calls for the abolition of "likability" in its entirety but put in a way that reads more like arguing to spare women the consequences of their bad behaviour. After the chapters on the Bitch and the Mean Girl, which to me are the strongest, the argument becomes repetitive and exhaustingly ranty. It's basically "Bitches aren't allowed to be bitches, they're punished; Mean Girls aren't allowed to be mean, they're punished; Sluts aren't allowed to be slutty, they're punished; Angry women aren't allowed to express their anger, they're punished, Psychos aren't..." ad infinitum. Always peppered by comments that male characters that are all those things are celebrated, even when the examples are cherry-picked and made to fit in with a hammer. So your example of male anger being "celebrated" is The Joker, really? Really?
That's the biggest problem, to me, the cherry-picking of examples and omissions of context. Bogutskaya very deliberately goes for the worst/extreme examples to "prove" her points, which many times are a stretch. She goes for Reddit threads to support her claims, a place that is infamously young, white, male, and liberal, so how exactly does she expect them to react given that skewed demographic? That'd be like going to ask the Amish for their opinion on Playboy. And speaking of that, she also goes to the other extreme to "prove" her point, by citing without naming them, the conservative reactions to Cardi B's WAP song. Bogutskaya might steer clear of naming the pearl-clutchers, but we all know it's the likes of conservative Orthodox Jew pundit Ben Shapiro, who is predictably going to react like a conservative Orthodox Jew. What was I saying about asking the Amish, hmmm?
And some of the critics and media she quotes aren't known for their quality analysis content or their outstanding journalism either. I mean, the Huffington Post, really? Really? And as the cincher, Bogutskaya, a white woman, doesn't know where to stand on the whole Latinos vs Latinx debacle, because at first she uses the gendered Latina and then suddenly remembers she's meant to be "inclusive" and, good little white woman that she is, uses Latinx next, screw what actual Latin American people think of the term.
So, essentially, this is another case of a relevant and important topic suffering from the writer's delivery, plus too much pop psychology and pop feminism. Nothing Bogutskaya says here is really groundbreaking or particularly new, I've read the same things from better informed and more thoughtful feminists, including the controversial Camille Paglia. And the book suffers so much from the omissions and oversimplifications, to the point I was sometimes asking myself how much Bogutskaya really knows the fandoms she's criticising. For example, on the chapter where she addresses Cersei Lannister (in the Bitch section), she seems to imply that the reason Cersei is hated is because she's an ambitious woman who goes for it and doesn't apologise for it, and quotes actress Lena Headey as support, breathlessly adding that Lena got hate for her performance from fans. Here, I have to ask, did she know Cersei was so hated because the showrunners were doing their damnedest to make her "likable" and "nuanced" at the expense of other characters? TV Cersei isn't Book Cersei, that was the root of the fan hate. TV Cersei is a prime example of botched "likability," but Bogutskaya thinks it's her being the villain and punished for it that is the problem. Frankly, Catelyn and Sansa Stark are better examples for her thesis, both are "likable" in the traditional sense but hated by the fandom because they go against the popular characters (male and female). And, curiously, Bogutskaya, who argues for abolishing "likability," has no thoughts on the fact that Cersei's brother Tyrion, who in the books is morally compromised, is made to be nice and near-saintly in the show . . . and he is a fan favourite.
In sum, I do think there's merit in campaigning for allowing female characters to be as bad and flawed and messy as male characters. We women are no saints, and many of us love Bad Girls too as we love Good Boys. Not everyone likes Bad Boys, and not every Bad Boy is allowed to "get away with it" (we circle back to the cherry-picking issue) either, and the concepts of likability and unlikability are highly subjective in any case, so the conclusion to get rid of likability as a passé concept and view unlikability as merely a trait doesn't appeal to me. It smacks of the trope that bad behaviour means "nuance" whilst good behaviour is "unrealistic idealism," and glosses over the reasons for why the "bad/grey characters" became so popular in the first place. I'd much rather advocate for well-rounded characters, which to me mean both good and bad, flawed and layered, instead of working with black-and-white concepts of characterisation.
___________________________________
[1] The Marquise de Merteuil, from whom I got my Goodreads username, so you can all stop asking me if I'm French now, especially those men seeking a relationship that send DMs to me.
I received an ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review
March 16, 2024
Okay, GoodReads crowd, think about this: How often have you read on this platform that reviewers criticize books for having no "relatable" or "likeable" characters? Such an argument (if you even want to call it that) does not only convey a reductive understanding of what literature is, no, it also reveals and re-enforces a societal problem that especially affects women: The pressure to conform to societal standards. Even fictional women, it seems, tend to be punished by audiences if they are not likeable enough. It's not that men are exempt, but the standards for them are different.
Bogutskaya explores this phenomenon over different media, but mainly in film. Structured in tropes - the bitch, the mean girl, the angry woman, the trainwreck, the psycho, the shrew, the weirdo, the crazy woman - she discusses how men and women are judged when exhibiting certain behaviors. And of course, she is right, but the text is also highly descriptive, repetitive and hammers home rather obvious points when you could go way deeper into sociology or, even more interesting, the more ambiguous aspects. Because get this: The book states that even fictional women are not allowed to be messy and complicated (and I agree), but then simply celebrates all characters which embody the tropes, while the whole point of the characters is that they claim complexity, because women are people, and have the right to appear as such (and not as some ideal) in media. We should not have to detest or celebrate these tropes, but investigate their humanity.
Here, it is necessary to make a distinction: Some behaviors and qualities embodied in the tropes are not objectively problematic, but are villainized to keep women down, e.g.: Women should not be too smart, they should not get angry no matter the reason, they should not desire power, etc. pp. That's just misogyny. More interesting are the tropes that depict women who display objectively problematic behaviors, like violence, addictions, or bullying. The characters attached to the behaviors do have redeeming qualities and reasons, but they remain problematic. The core discussion here is the dehumanization of women by not allowing them to be a mess. The answer cannot be to say that it's actually great to be a mess (à la "I support women's rights and women's wrongs" - WTF is that even supposed to mean?), thus re-framing unlikeability as likeability, and again playing the game we set out to disrupt. No, we should rather let the whole damn world deal with it: Yes, woman are people, with all that that entails, also the bad aspects.
And that's where the interesting discussion would lie. It's too easy to excuse the bully with a bad childhood and all the high school pressure, no: The bully is still also a bad person. We need to learn to sit with that, that things can be true simultaneously, that people are complicated. Only then do we truly demand to show women in media as people.
And now stop asking for likeable characters in your novels, for God's sake.
Bogutskaya explores this phenomenon over different media, but mainly in film. Structured in tropes - the bitch, the mean girl, the angry woman, the trainwreck, the psycho, the shrew, the weirdo, the crazy woman - she discusses how men and women are judged when exhibiting certain behaviors. And of course, she is right, but the text is also highly descriptive, repetitive and hammers home rather obvious points when you could go way deeper into sociology or, even more interesting, the more ambiguous aspects. Because get this: The book states that even fictional women are not allowed to be messy and complicated (and I agree), but then simply celebrates all characters which embody the tropes, while the whole point of the characters is that they claim complexity, because women are people, and have the right to appear as such (and not as some ideal) in media. We should not have to detest or celebrate these tropes, but investigate their humanity.
Here, it is necessary to make a distinction: Some behaviors and qualities embodied in the tropes are not objectively problematic, but are villainized to keep women down, e.g.: Women should not be too smart, they should not get angry no matter the reason, they should not desire power, etc. pp. That's just misogyny. More interesting are the tropes that depict women who display objectively problematic behaviors, like violence, addictions, or bullying. The characters attached to the behaviors do have redeeming qualities and reasons, but they remain problematic. The core discussion here is the dehumanization of women by not allowing them to be a mess. The answer cannot be to say that it's actually great to be a mess (à la "I support women's rights and women's wrongs" - WTF is that even supposed to mean?), thus re-framing unlikeability as likeability, and again playing the game we set out to disrupt. No, we should rather let the whole damn world deal with it: Yes, woman are people, with all that that entails, also the bad aspects.
And that's where the interesting discussion would lie. It's too easy to excuse the bully with a bad childhood and all the high school pressure, no: The bully is still also a bad person. We need to learn to sit with that, that things can be true simultaneously, that people are complicated. Only then do we truly demand to show women in media as people.
And now stop asking for likeable characters in your novels, for God's sake.
November 7, 2023
4.5 stars
as someone who LOVES pop culture and unlikable characters i feel like this book was perfect for me. i was very familiar with a lot of the references the author talked about but i also liked how she made it easy to understand if you didn’t get an actor or media she referenced. my favorite chapters were the first 3 chapters and the weirdo chapter (not to be a jughead jones but im very much a weirdo). i love that she talked about black women in media as well because i was nervous this was gonna be a white feminist type of book but she condemned that stereotype multiple times. it seemed she also did her research and really cared when she talked about it too. i also enjoyed the mentions of classics like shakespeare or jane austin books that were turned into modern media since that’s a somewhat niche topic im familiar with. so good and highly recommend to all the bitches, sluts and weirdos out there!
as someone who LOVES pop culture and unlikable characters i feel like this book was perfect for me. i was very familiar with a lot of the references the author talked about but i also liked how she made it easy to understand if you didn’t get an actor or media she referenced. my favorite chapters were the first 3 chapters and the weirdo chapter (not to be a jughead jones but im very much a weirdo). i love that she talked about black women in media as well because i was nervous this was gonna be a white feminist type of book but she condemned that stereotype multiple times. it seemed she also did her research and really cared when she talked about it too. i also enjoyed the mentions of classics like shakespeare or jane austin books that were turned into modern media since that’s a somewhat niche topic im familiar with. so good and highly recommend to all the bitches, sluts and weirdos out there!
March 19, 2024
devastated to report this book was ultimately a collection of lengthy plot summaries about movies and tv series featuring female characters who were either villainous or vilified, noticeably lacking what i typically consider the foundation of a book: something to say. if the purpose was simply to remind me that complicated women exist, great. i could have looked in a mirror.
August 3, 2023
It wasn’t bad! I think it veered off course often and could’ve been deeper. Lots of plot explanation rather than analysis. Repetitive. I took an extra star off because she took 2 small paragraphs to SHIT on Lana Del Rey and her “fetishizing abuse” in her lyrics and for “fetishizing melancholy” fuck off i like to romanticize my melancholy i’m not hurting anyone and fuck off for being the only musician you “call out” in this book ans fuck off for it being my favorite one ever. It struck a nerve
May 11, 2023
Easy to read and free of the somewhat prohibitive lingo of academic media analysis, Unlikable Female Characters provides a short and interesting history of female representation in American movie and television through the lense of the women we are meant to dislike.
I wish more time was spent on certain types of unlikable women but considering the amount of history and examples the author managed to cram in relatively few pages I can't really hold it against the book. I particularly enjoyed the author's criticism of the idea that women representation necessarily has to be feminist in some kind of way to be worthy (edited to add; this book has a resolutely feminist bent so please do not read this comment as an implication that the book is somehow against feminism).
I received an eARC of this book from SOURCEBOOKS through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I wish more time was spent on certain types of unlikable women but considering the amount of history and examples the author managed to cram in relatively few pages I can't really hold it against the book. I particularly enjoyed the author's criticism of the idea that women representation necessarily has to be feminist in some kind of way to be worthy (edited to add; this book has a resolutely feminist bent so please do not read this comment as an implication that the book is somehow against feminism).
I received an eARC of this book from SOURCEBOOKS through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
January 15, 2025
review to come, i swear, but it’s the first week of uni and I’m already swamped
April 19, 2023
“Unlikeable Female Characters” by Anna Bogutskaya is a nonfiction examination of feminine archetypes in media that inspire controversy over women behaving badly – “the women pop culture wants you to hate!” triumphs the cover art. It’s organized by archetype – ranging from “trainwreck”, to “mean girl”, to “slut”, to “psycho” – and each section goes through a brief history of each character type before delving into specific examples that have proven influential over the years.
Bogutskaya writes in a chatty, conversational style, witty and knowing in a way that reminded me of Buzzfeed-style lists but with the scholarly back up of a bunch of film and television scholarship. It’s a fun, easy book to read and understand. What Bogutskaya knows – such as “Gone Girl” in all its nuances – is well-researched and interesting. What ultimately works against this book is its surface-level examination of each trope: never once did Bogutskaya write anything more thoughtful than the average feminist Twitter reaction thread. That’s not an insult – I’ve read some great Twitter threads in my day – but the topic is, in this case, too broad for a 300 page book that examines 9 archetypes. There’s simply nothing here that surprised me or rocked my world or was particularly new or unique. You get exactly what you expect with this one, and nothing new.
The topic is too broad, and Bogutskaya’s pop culture lexicon too narrow. It is extremely obvious when Bogutskaya isn’t familiar with various areas of pop culture. While “Fleabag” and “Killing Eve” and various indie movies are often referenced (and are, rather obviously, the sort of pop culture media the author enjoys watching), the biggies that have taken over modern pop culture are oddly missing in action. Where’s the chapter on the accusations of Rey Skywalker’s “Mary Sue” tendencies? (For that matter, why isn’t “Mary Sue” one of the character archetypes discussed here? It’s exclusively leveled at female characters that are too smart, too quick on their feet, too ‘perfect’. Seems strange to have left it out entirely). Marvel’s chokehold on the film industry (and the hatred the actresses have received) wasn’t mentioned. Butch lesbians have been despised in media for ages, but they don’t get a mention. Video games and women have long been a contentious subject – see Gamer Gate, see how “The Last of Us: Part Two”’s Abby caused a hysterical fervor of fury and hatred toward a female character that nearly broke Reddit - and yet again, no mention. Bogutskaya makes a comment that Villanelle from “Killing Eve” was the first time a fandom sprung up around a psycho, while completely ignoring Hannibal, to which Killing Eve owes quite a bit. And of course while Bogutskaya acknowledges that her list of nine archetypes works differently for women of color than it does white women, I feel like a lot more might have been done to delve into the specific ways race intersects with likeability in women.
So all in all – I’d give this book to someone just starting to study media who wants a light delving into this specific topic, but it’s not a book that I learned anything new from. It’s fun, it’s readable, but it doesn’t really achieve the depth it needs.
Bogutskaya writes in a chatty, conversational style, witty and knowing in a way that reminded me of Buzzfeed-style lists but with the scholarly back up of a bunch of film and television scholarship. It’s a fun, easy book to read and understand. What Bogutskaya knows – such as “Gone Girl” in all its nuances – is well-researched and interesting. What ultimately works against this book is its surface-level examination of each trope: never once did Bogutskaya write anything more thoughtful than the average feminist Twitter reaction thread. That’s not an insult – I’ve read some great Twitter threads in my day – but the topic is, in this case, too broad for a 300 page book that examines 9 archetypes. There’s simply nothing here that surprised me or rocked my world or was particularly new or unique. You get exactly what you expect with this one, and nothing new.
The topic is too broad, and Bogutskaya’s pop culture lexicon too narrow. It is extremely obvious when Bogutskaya isn’t familiar with various areas of pop culture. While “Fleabag” and “Killing Eve” and various indie movies are often referenced (and are, rather obviously, the sort of pop culture media the author enjoys watching), the biggies that have taken over modern pop culture are oddly missing in action. Where’s the chapter on the accusations of Rey Skywalker’s “Mary Sue” tendencies? (For that matter, why isn’t “Mary Sue” one of the character archetypes discussed here? It’s exclusively leveled at female characters that are too smart, too quick on their feet, too ‘perfect’. Seems strange to have left it out entirely). Marvel’s chokehold on the film industry (and the hatred the actresses have received) wasn’t mentioned. Butch lesbians have been despised in media for ages, but they don’t get a mention. Video games and women have long been a contentious subject – see Gamer Gate, see how “The Last of Us: Part Two”’s Abby caused a hysterical fervor of fury and hatred toward a female character that nearly broke Reddit - and yet again, no mention. Bogutskaya makes a comment that Villanelle from “Killing Eve” was the first time a fandom sprung up around a psycho, while completely ignoring Hannibal, to which Killing Eve owes quite a bit. And of course while Bogutskaya acknowledges that her list of nine archetypes works differently for women of color than it does white women, I feel like a lot more might have been done to delve into the specific ways race intersects with likeability in women.
So all in all – I’d give this book to someone just starting to study media who wants a light delving into this specific topic, but it’s not a book that I learned anything new from. It’s fun, it’s readable, but it doesn’t really achieve the depth it needs.
November 10, 2024
This is a fantastic non-fiction that talks about the empowerment of women through the rise of unlikable female characters in visual media.
This book was well researched, and was a joy to listen to via audio. I enjoyed learning about the author's takes on certain 'unlikable' female characters while simultaneously dissecting the most common tropes that these characters fall into.
My favorite part was definitely in the section titled 'The Psycho'. I found the author's assessment of Amy Dunne in the 2014 film 'Gone Girl', as well as her takes of female serial killers, fascinating.
This book was well researched, and was a joy to listen to via audio. I enjoyed learning about the author's takes on certain 'unlikable' female characters while simultaneously dissecting the most common tropes that these characters fall into.
My favorite part was definitely in the section titled 'The Psycho'. I found the author's assessment of Amy Dunne in the 2014 film 'Gone Girl', as well as her takes of female serial killers, fascinating.
February 15, 2024
4.5 stars. Really insightful and interesting and thought-provoking. All hail the unlikeable female characters!!
April 16, 2023
A TOTAL EYE-OPENER
This book was very thought provoking and eye-opening. While I am not the biggest moviebuff, Bogutskaya did a great job of picking characters with a cultural appeal that most people are likely to be familiar with. The book was well-written and the arguments were easy to follow and get into. Bogutskaya is great at making points and underlining them twice. It definitely made me more interested in movies and how women are portrayed in them.
ARC provided by the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review
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This book was very thought provoking and eye-opening. While I am not the biggest moviebuff, Bogutskaya did a great job of picking characters with a cultural appeal that most people are likely to be familiar with. The book was well-written and the arguments were easy to follow and get into. Bogutskaya is great at making points and underlining them twice. It definitely made me more interested in movies and how women are portrayed in them.
ARC provided by the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review
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Blog Post: Which Book Should you read next based on your favourite Jane Austen Heroine
July 12, 2023
Loistava!
Elokuvateollisuuden parissa työskentelevä Anna Bogutskaya pilkkoo pop-kulttuurin naishahmot yhdeksään eri kategoriaan, jotka media on opettanut meidät vihaamaan. Hahmon pidettävyys/miellyttävyys (likeability) vilahtelee jatkuvasti (instan & goodreadsin) kirja-arvioissa, ja usein epämiellyttävä hahmo on jonkun tietyn troopin kuvaelma; ämmä, lutka, vihainen nainen tai ihan vain hullu exä. Siinä missä mieshahmo on epämiellyttävyydessäänkin aina syvällinen ja runsas, odottaa vastaavaa naishahmoa pahin mahdollinen rangaistus: miehettä jääminen.
Bogutskaya kirjoittaa, ettei 2020-luvulla enää edes pitäisi olla tällaista kirjaa, että tämän aiheen olisi pitänyt jäädä jo kauan sitten taakse. Ja samalla hänen analyysinsa puree täysin vielä vuoden sisällä julkaistuihin sarjoihin (White Lotus, House of the Dragon, Succession [joka tosin tekee näistä sentään satiiria]), instagramin hot mess- & sad girl -estetiikkaan ja oikeastaan kaikkeen keskusteluun, mitä mediassa edelleen oikeanlaisesta naiseudesta käydään.
Bogutskaya näyttää, analysoi, ja lopuksi muistuttaa, että yksi hahmo galleriasta voi vapauttaa meidät; The weirdo, outolintu. Kun hylkäämme sukupuolirooliin kuuluvat odotukset, putoaminen suoraan oudoksi, mutta moniulotteisiksi, kokonaisiksi hahmoiksi, joiden olemassaolo mitataan autonomian määrässä suhteessa itseensä, ei patriarkaaliseen hyväksyntään.
Joten sitä kohti, yhdessä.
Elokuvateollisuuden parissa työskentelevä Anna Bogutskaya pilkkoo pop-kulttuurin naishahmot yhdeksään eri kategoriaan, jotka media on opettanut meidät vihaamaan. Hahmon pidettävyys/miellyttävyys (likeability) vilahtelee jatkuvasti (instan & goodreadsin) kirja-arvioissa, ja usein epämiellyttävä hahmo on jonkun tietyn troopin kuvaelma; ämmä, lutka, vihainen nainen tai ihan vain hullu exä. Siinä missä mieshahmo on epämiellyttävyydessäänkin aina syvällinen ja runsas, odottaa vastaavaa naishahmoa pahin mahdollinen rangaistus: miehettä jääminen.
Bogutskaya kirjoittaa, ettei 2020-luvulla enää edes pitäisi olla tällaista kirjaa, että tämän aiheen olisi pitänyt jäädä jo kauan sitten taakse. Ja samalla hänen analyysinsa puree täysin vielä vuoden sisällä julkaistuihin sarjoihin (White Lotus, House of the Dragon, Succession [joka tosin tekee näistä sentään satiiria]), instagramin hot mess- & sad girl -estetiikkaan ja oikeastaan kaikkeen keskusteluun, mitä mediassa edelleen oikeanlaisesta naiseudesta käydään.
Bogutskaya näyttää, analysoi, ja lopuksi muistuttaa, että yksi hahmo galleriasta voi vapauttaa meidät; The weirdo, outolintu. Kun hylkäämme sukupuolirooliin kuuluvat odotukset, putoaminen suoraan oudoksi, mutta moniulotteisiksi, kokonaisiksi hahmoiksi, joiden olemassaolo mitataan autonomian määrässä suhteessa itseensä, ei patriarkaaliseen hyväksyntään.
Joten sitä kohti, yhdessä.
June 4, 2023
I enjoyed the concept but wish there had been more solid evidence with actual sources rather than using Reddit as her reference lol.
August 24, 2023
Like many others have said, this is a very surface-level analysis of the tropes many female characters in film and television fall into. A lot of the categories the author identifies get muddied with many of the characters she highlights easily falling into multiple. A lot of it reminded me of writing a paper for a college English class where you start out with a thesis and then shoehorn in examples to fit your thesis. There were a lot of typos (e.g., Roy Schneider for Rob Schneider), which made me think this book could have used another round or two of edits.
My biggest issue with the book is that it contained a lot of inaccurate information or opinions-stated-as-fact that I felt were really off-base. For example, even after listing Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and Some Kind of Wonderful as examples of John Hughes films, she says his “preoccupations were mostly with teenage boys—more specifically, how nerdy teenage boys could get the girl, or any girl—except for one exception: any film starring Molly Ringwald…” That’s a pretty big exception, considering Molly Ringwald is what most people think of when they think of John Hughes. Of the six examples she herself listed only one is preoccupied with nerdy teenage boys trying to get girls (I acknowledge it’s a subplot in Sixteen Candles). On the next page, she says of Heathers: “Although the shoulder pads and the cast (Winona Ryder and Shannen Doherty) might give it away, the dialogue is purposely not placeable in any particular era.” WHAT. With the possible exception of Valley Girl, I would argue that Heathers is the movie with the most quintessentially 80s dialogue. She also gets the plot of Cruel Intentions wrong. These examples made it hard for me to take her word for media I’m less familiar with.
My biggest issue with the book is that it contained a lot of inaccurate information or opinions-stated-as-fact that I felt were really off-base. For example, even after listing Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and Some Kind of Wonderful as examples of John Hughes films, she says his “preoccupations were mostly with teenage boys—more specifically, how nerdy teenage boys could get the girl, or any girl—except for one exception: any film starring Molly Ringwald…” That’s a pretty big exception, considering Molly Ringwald is what most people think of when they think of John Hughes. Of the six examples she herself listed only one is preoccupied with nerdy teenage boys trying to get girls (I acknowledge it’s a subplot in Sixteen Candles). On the next page, she says of Heathers: “Although the shoulder pads and the cast (Winona Ryder and Shannen Doherty) might give it away, the dialogue is purposely not placeable in any particular era.” WHAT. With the possible exception of Valley Girl, I would argue that Heathers is the movie with the most quintessentially 80s dialogue. She also gets the plot of Cruel Intentions wrong. These examples made it hard for me to take her word for media I’m less familiar with.
November 14, 2023
unfortunately, this really didn’t say anything new about the depiction of women onscreen and would really only benefit someone that’s new to feminism and media analysis.
some of the descriptions were simply incorrect and it just got boring after a while. I really don’t know what the purpose of the book was and it was frustrating to see so many opportunities to dig deeper go ignored. the author definitely plays favorites and that’s fine, but it’s to the point where she downplays the relevance of other characters. Like, Harley Quinn is canonically bisexual and literally dating a woman in her own animated show. Not sure why that was ignored and why she was dismissed as “supposedly fluid” or whatever. And I do think Lena Dunham admitting to SA is a pretty solid reason for her show to get backlash idk how the author felt ok omitting that little detail.
as much as she tries to be inclusive, this was solidly white feminist and horribly heteronormative. we’re talking unlikeable female characters and there’s no mention of lesbians?? fat women??? “Mary sues” ?!?? like another review said, men hate butches, Abby Anderson (TLOU), and the limited women in Star Wars with a CONCERNING passion with REAL life effects and that wasn’t mentioned ?!?!?!? AHHHH
thank you to goodreads and the publisher for the review copy :)
some of the descriptions were simply incorrect and it just got boring after a while. I really don’t know what the purpose of the book was and it was frustrating to see so many opportunities to dig deeper go ignored. the author definitely plays favorites and that’s fine, but it’s to the point where she downplays the relevance of other characters. Like, Harley Quinn is canonically bisexual and literally dating a woman in her own animated show. Not sure why that was ignored and why she was dismissed as “supposedly fluid” or whatever. And I do think Lena Dunham admitting to SA is a pretty solid reason for her show to get backlash idk how the author felt ok omitting that little detail.
as much as she tries to be inclusive, this was solidly white feminist and horribly heteronormative. we’re talking unlikeable female characters and there’s no mention of lesbians?? fat women??? “Mary sues” ?!?? like another review said, men hate butches, Abby Anderson (TLOU), and the limited women in Star Wars with a CONCERNING passion with REAL life effects and that wasn’t mentioned ?!?!?!? AHHHH
thank you to goodreads and the publisher for the review copy :)
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December 12, 2025
Many good points were made, but it just felt...really, really repetitive.
I was enjoying it up until about the halfway point and then it just felt like some of the categories were just another name for the same thing, and some of the later chapters were much weaker than the absolute knockouts of the beginning chapters.
I was enjoying it up until about the halfway point and then it just felt like some of the categories were just another name for the same thing, and some of the later chapters were much weaker than the absolute knockouts of the beginning chapters.
June 16, 2024
“just because you like pink doesn’t mean you aren’t filled with murderous rage”
February 4, 2024
You ever feel like a book is talking down to you because you already know all about most of the movies and have made the same observations?
Anyway DNF @ 50%
Anyway DNF @ 50%
January 10, 2026
Things have finally begun to change slightly, but overall and still, females need to be Likable while males don’t have to be anything.
May 25, 2023
I found this book to be thought-provoking and important. As a self-proclaimed pop culture aficionado, it captivated me and brought attention to a lot of the issues Hollywood has perpetrated toward female characters in the past century. I appreciate Anna's thorough research and how she translated that knowledge into an engaging, readable book.
Even as a woman, I recognize that I have often fall into a lot of the traps regarding UFCs, only regarding them as likeable if they "redeem" themselves, disliking them if they're "too much": too angry, too sexual, too confident. I really appreciated that this book highlighted the larger historical issues (as well as the changing tide and hopeful future of these types of characters), as well as helping the reader to identify areas of personal improvement in our own cultural perception and participation. It really made me think. And there were so many parts that I marked -- passages that felt so validating and true.
A really worthwhile, enjoyable, and insightful read!
Thank you to Sourcebooks and Netgalley for the e-ARC in exchange for my honest, unbiased review.
Even as a woman, I recognize that I have often fall into a lot of the traps regarding UFCs, only regarding them as likeable if they "redeem" themselves, disliking them if they're "too much": too angry, too sexual, too confident. I really appreciated that this book highlighted the larger historical issues (as well as the changing tide and hopeful future of these types of characters), as well as helping the reader to identify areas of personal improvement in our own cultural perception and participation. It really made me think. And there were so many parts that I marked -- passages that felt so validating and true.
A really worthwhile, enjoyable, and insightful read!
Thank you to Sourcebooks and Netgalley for the e-ARC in exchange for my honest, unbiased review.
June 3, 2023
Such a fun (and useful) read for me but wow copy editors need to be better!
March 28, 2024
I love unlikeable characters in books and movies especially females so this one was a perfect read for me. Very informative, I love how much research was put into this and each categorization of unlikeable female characters was interesting and gave a new perspective on pop culture and modern unhinged women themes that have become a popular subject in recent years. I listened to the audiobook and I would recommend it because I find it better than reading from a physical copy.
February 12, 2024
⭐️ 4.25 - Everything I love. An analysis of representation of women in the media and pop culture and the rise of “unlikeable female characters.” My biggest regret is in my undergrad I wasn’t able to take a class offered at UNL that was called “Saints, Witches, and Madwoman” and I feel this book was the modern take on this idea
June 24, 2025
Not a bad book by any means, but it was less psychological than I'd hoped it would be. Instead, the book lays out unlikeable women in fiction, and explains their character, goals, and why they were disliked.
Maybe if you've never watched or read anything ever, you would enjoy this book—but I already knew all of the women mentioned. I fail to see what this book intended to accomplish.
It felt a bit redundant, as it kept reiterating the same points over, and over, and over.
Maybe if you've never watched or read anything ever, you would enjoy this book—but I already knew all of the women mentioned. I fail to see what this book intended to accomplish.
It felt a bit redundant, as it kept reiterating the same points over, and over, and over.
February 24, 2025
a short and interesting history on my favorite topic.
i loved that this read was void of too much academic speak and just felt fun. however i wish it dove into the history a bit more because parts of it felt like the author was just describing plots of movies to me (which ive already seen).
i loved that this read was void of too much academic speak and just felt fun. however i wish it dove into the history a bit more because parts of it felt like the author was just describing plots of movies to me (which ive already seen).
February 1, 2024
i thought this book was meant for me when i saw the cover and premise but alas .. it definitely got some points across but it felt too plot summary and less analysis
February 23, 2023
This was fun in a way that it’s fun to listen to someone talk about things they enjoy and obviously spend a lot of time on.
A lot of these movies and shows I only know on a surface level, have seen partially or not at all and I thought the author did a good job of summarizing them without going into too much, or too little, detail. Bogutskaya catalogues the unlikeable female characters into The Bitch, The Mean Girl, The Angry Woman, The Slut, The Trainwreck, The Crazy Woman, The Psycho, The Shrew and The Weirdo. I got the impression that we’d be talking about 1 or 2 major popular characters for each category but really this was an ocean of examples and sadly I got the sense that some of the analysis got lost in it. Once you get the gist of it it gets a bit repetitive; the thing that held me until the end was the simple joy of seeing my personal favorites mentioned and nodding along.
Still, this is a concise, straightforward (and fun) account of female characters that shaped culture and some that culture never allowed to shine. I will be going through the watchlist if only to see the pre-Code Hollywood movies and lament what could’ve been.
Thank you to Sourcebooks and NetGalley for providing this ARC.
A lot of these movies and shows I only know on a surface level, have seen partially or not at all and I thought the author did a good job of summarizing them without going into too much, or too little, detail. Bogutskaya catalogues the unlikeable female characters into The Bitch, The Mean Girl, The Angry Woman, The Slut, The Trainwreck, The Crazy Woman, The Psycho, The Shrew and The Weirdo. I got the impression that we’d be talking about 1 or 2 major popular characters for each category but really this was an ocean of examples and sadly I got the sense that some of the analysis got lost in it. Once you get the gist of it it gets a bit repetitive; the thing that held me until the end was the simple joy of seeing my personal favorites mentioned and nodding along.
Still, this is a concise, straightforward (and fun) account of female characters that shaped culture and some that culture never allowed to shine. I will be going through the watchlist if only to see the pre-Code Hollywood movies and lament what could’ve been.
Thank you to Sourcebooks and NetGalley for providing this ARC.
March 27, 2023
A bit repetitive in parts and quite a few inaccuracies. Really could have benefited from another round of edits.
Read
March 12, 2024A good read for Women's History month, illustrating all of the ways media tells us women can't or shouldn't be. Women characters who fall into these tropes- the Bitch, the Slut, the Shrew, the Trainwreck, the Weirdo, the Crazy woman, and the Psycho can't be good villains, or complex interesting characters, we just don't like them.
The most disturbing bit is probably how many of the different kinds of unlikeable women resonate with me, and probably with most women I know.
A small gripe is how the font size kept changing throughout.
The most disturbing bit is probably how many of the different kinds of unlikeable women resonate with me, and probably with most women I know.
A small gripe is how the font size kept changing throughout.
Read
May 14, 2025A pesar de que está muy bien y es muy interesante, se centra en las míticas películas de las que ya nos sabemos el análisis y se hace muy repetitivo. Aunque intenta dividir por tropes, al final muchas beben de otros o deberían incluirse en varios. También me parece bastante incompleta la lista que aparece al final con recomendaciones, al menos en cuanto a contemporánea se refiere.
En definitiva, me hubiera gustado que fuera más actual teniendo en cuenta la fecha de su publicación y todos los nuevos personajes que considero que hay y que son más interesantes a día de hoy.
En definitiva, me hubiera gustado que fuera más actual teniendo en cuenta la fecha de su publicación y todos los nuevos personajes que considero que hay y que son más interesantes a día de hoy.
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